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Vision of Management in the Management of University Social Responsibility

 

Author: Juan Carlos Pernía

Universidad Centroccidental Lisandro Alvarado, UCLA

jpernia@ucla.edu.ve

Lara, Venezuela

 

Abstract

             The administrative and managerial sciences generate spaces for research on the contribution of universities in the training of socially responsible professionals. The purpose of this essay is to generate a reflection on the management view of the University Social Responsibility (RSU). The methodical process used to collect the information is supported by the documentary review of some theoretical sketches related to the constructs of the RSU, such as care, management, use of goods and services in pursuit of the benefit of the common good of all the citizens; which should be oriented towards new managerial alternatives that are more efficient to adapt to the complex dynamics of society's growth. Hence, higher education organizations have the responsibility to take measures to protect the environment, in addition to contributing to the welfare of society, as a whole that must respond to organizational interests but also the sustainable development of the country. It was concluded that university social responsibility should focus on promoting a critical and reflective approach by academic managers to go beyond their training jobs, without disciplinary barriers that assume an unstructured attitude of complexity, creating new spaces of present management and future of the academic organization aimed at graduating professionals with relevant knowledge to the demands of contemporary society, people committed to improving the quality of collective life from a planetary view.

 

             Keywords: management; prospective; social responsibility; university.

 

Date Received: 07-11-2017

Date Acceptance: 20-01-2018

 

 

Visión de la Gestión en la Gerencia de la Responsabilidad Social Universitaria

 

Resumen

Las ciencias administrativas en las gestiones gerenciales generan espacios para la investigación sobre la contribución de las universidades en la formación de profesionales socialmente responsables. El propósito de este ensayo es generar una reflexión acerca de la visión de la gestión en la gerencia de la Responsabilidad Social Universitaria (RSU). El proceso metódico utilizado para el acopio de la información, se apoya en la revisión documental de algunos esbozos teóricos relacionados con los constructos de la RSU, como el cuidado, manejo, utilización de los bienes y servicios en procura del beneficio del bien común de todos los ciudadanos; las cuales deben orientarse hacia nuevas alternativas gerenciales que sean más eficientes para adaptarse a la dinámica compleja del crecimiento de la sociedad. De ahí que las organizaciones de educación superior, tienen una corresponsabilidad de tomar las medidas de protección de medio ambiente, además de contribuir con el bienestar de la sociedad, como un todo mancomunado que debe responder a los intereses organizacionales, pero también del desarrollo sustentable del país. Se concluyó que la responsabilidad social universitaria debe promover una perspectiva reflexiva de los gerentes académicos para trascender la labor formativa, desde una mirada prospectiva estratégica en un pensamiento sistémico, sin barreras disciplinaria que asuma una actitud desestructurada de la complejidad, creando nuevos espacios de gestión presente y futura de la organización académica orientada a egresar profesionales con conocimientos pertinentes a las demandas de la sociedad contemporánea, personas comprometidas con mejorar la calidad de vida colectiva desde una visión planetaria.

 

Palabras clave: gestión; prospectiva; responsabilidad social; universidad.

 

Fecha de Recepción: 07-11-2017

Fecha de Aceptación: 20-01-2018

 

 

1.    Introduction

Today's societies are in a process of transition, from a productive and economic activity based especially on industry to one based on knowledge, where the processing of information and the communication of symbols become the main productive and productive activity. economic and social development through the training of professionals capable of generating strategic plans for the development of contemporary society.

 

The strategic plans of the management must be oriented to guarantee the supply of necessary resources for the satisfaction of their felt needs that encompass all aspects of the life of the citizens. These should be linked in form and content, to social aspects, of course should consider the economic in terms of strategic rationalization of sustainability.

 

The strategic rationality of the manager, has its tactical base in the personal skills, with technical-administrative-human domain to project the desired future. It is a vision of the future able to train professionals with an axiological profile to assume social responsibility through Integral actions through complex relationships, which in addition to being random, have reciprocal effects within the university organizations with society which belong from a planetary perspective of coexistence.

 

In this sense, the purpose of this essay is to generate a reflection about the management vision in the management of University Social Responsibility (RSU). The methodical process used to collect the information that is the basis of this study is based on the documentary review of some sketches related to the theoretical constructs of study, which are presented below.

 

2.  Analysis of Theoretical Approaches

The trends, social, political and administrative during the last decades, have created new dynamics in organizations, which should be oriented towards new advanced management alternatives that are more efficient to adapt to the complex dynamics of the growth of society in such a way, of go adapting to the scientific and technical changes that allow the management of the processes in the search for efficiency, of the techno-administrative-productive operations, in terms of supporting the management of managers within public or private institutions such as the case of universities.

 

In accordance with the approaches of Drucker (2012), in the administration of the university organization:

The management is a position held by the director of a company which has in its multiple functions, in addition to representing society in front of third parties and coordinating all resources through the planning process, organization, direction and control in order to achieve established objectives (p.97).

 

Therefore, within this dynamic the manager in the public administration in many cases fulfills various functions that requires him to act as supervisor, controller, auditor, among other actions inherent to his position. In this managerial context, the university organizations also develop actions related to the management and control of the techno-administrative processes. According to Barroso (2000): management involves the processes of planning, organization, selection and control, as well as dealing with the uncertainty and complexity of interactions both within and outside the organization, related to quality management from a perspective of social responsibility.

 

In the words of Vega (2009): social responsibility is related to the "commitment that the organization has to the society in which it develops its activities, either as a social institution, as a particular economic organization or as the set of individuals that comprise it (p.21). In recent times, it has acquired an ethical dimension that every organization or institution should incorporate within its policies and organizational structure, serving as management strategies in its daily activity.

 

According to Benavides, Alameda and Villagra (2002): Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), recognizes the importance of "developing value systems that reflect the willingness to assume these responsibilities instead of transferring them to others" (p.42). Therefore, it represents the whole corporate strategies, aimed at producing benefits in the activities of both the company and the society, aimed at promoting the development of the community, and to generate in their human talent a greater commitment to their co-responsible productive work. Also, in the university context, Díaz (2009), affirms that:

The university as a center of development and promotion of knowledge has the responsibility of promoting a better awareness of global problems such as the damage caused to the environment, technological risks, economic crisis, poverty, hunger, among others, through the promotion, within its formation, of a complex and plural thought, based on solidarity, ethics, cooperation-scientific, humanistic and technological collaboration. Today's society advances to the extent that it generates, appropriates and uses knowledge, created or obtained locally, to meet the needs of development and build its own future (p.12).

 

The university as the main producer of knowledge acquires a great responsibility in which it is necessary to invest resources as Didriksson (2016a) points out: in order to produce innovation and radical changes that respond to internal needs (research, new forms of management and organization) and external (contact of the university with society), depending on the current realities and their vision of the future in these organizations.

 

Consequently, vision of the future in the words of Godet (2007): it represents a prospective conception, which constitutes an anticipated (pre-active) representation, that configures a proactive condition to manage from the management, the desirable actions to achieve the aims of the organization. With the purpose of contributing to the formulation of the concept, in this document I propose that it is a discipline that, based on the collective set of thoughts, interests, feelings and personal and collective sensations, seeks to prepare the scenarios, based on a methodology, from a structured image for the construction of professional training projects as corresponds to the university.

 

In the same order of ideas, González and López (2014): sustain the decisive role of the university in the social, economic, political and cultural development of a country; for which López and Puevo (2016): point out that the training of professionals with a high reflective, critical level and a solid ethical base is required. Taking this statement as a starting point, we could highlight a concept closely linked to business, better known and widespread in recent times. There is talk of an ethical organizational dimension with a vision of promoting collective well-being in their daily activity.

 

In recent years, there has been growing interest from communities and society; De Fátima, Baptista and Contreras (2012): explain should be carried out through a process of reflection about the importance and impact of citizen participation, solidarity and ethics in increasingly complex environments, where problems prevail economic, social and environmental factors that hinder the development of societies. This feeling of responsibility about the individual and collective impact of the actions represents the beginning of the activity and definition of social responsibility.

 

In agreement with Didriksson (2016b): university institutions in Latin America from a projection in the XXI century, are subject to contemporary social demands, which requires defining a clear vision and policy, leadership in the management of the management of functions of teaching, research and extension that address social responsibility.

 

In correspondence with what was raised about social responsibility, from the approaches of Sanchez (2007), makes "a call to institutions of higher education to reconstruct and re-elaborate culture and knowledge to develop a more just and humane society" (p.12). This abstraction leads the universities to take a reflection on their incursion into social responsibility, not only because they are organizations, but because the professionals required by the companies are trained in them, in these work areas they will promote an ethical vision, contributing with common good and social justice.

 

Similarly, Romero (2008): notes that university social responsibility "consists of placing the person at the center of our concern and take it to teaching, research and decisions taken as part of the University and more beyond it" (p.5). Therefore, its approach is inclusive and complex, coming to emphasize and stimulate the relationship with the environment, based on relevance and social commitment, with a reconstruction of the curriculum in emerging needs along with the integration and internationalization of education.

 

In the words of Vallaeys (2014a): Latin American level has taken giant steps, due to its more comprehensive, complex and comprehensive position compared to the practice implemented in North America and Europe. In these areas, they have focused on addressing aspects related to the environment (sustainable campus), with little attention to training processes or linking and no attention to cognitive and epistemological processes.

 

In this orientation, the need to innovate in university education, through the functions of teaching, research and extension, promotes a social projection, as well as the expansion of science, technology and national culture; defending autonomy from a novel trend of globalization of higher education.

 

University social responsibility has now been placed as a global movement, implanted in the management system of the houses of study, as a necessity before the vertiginous development of society in all ethical aspects, with some axiological references of training Vallaeys Professional (2014b): points out the importance of an educational policy through responsible management, capable of assuming the RSU, through a participatory dialogue with the social environment, to improve its quality and promote sustainable human development.

 

In this orientation Villegas (2017): points out that social responsibility implies the development of "behaviors and behaviors in accordance with regulations, laws that regulate their operation, where they can function without adverse effects on society" (p.294). Hence, the importance of focusing the academic discourse in order to deploy an ethical education of all the people who live in the universities in a way that according to Izarra (2016): the impact on the management, on the teaching activity, on the knowledge generation resizes the activities associated with the management of the RSU, through programs of attention to the immediate communities of each university institution.

 

According to Senge (2005a): the sensitivity of doing management must be identified in the search for "subtle interconnections that give living systems a unique character" (p.91). This complex scenario must be approached from a systemic thinking of management and therefore of the prospective management of the RSU, to sustain the ability to drive the necessary changes that make up the various functions, in virtue of improving the quality of professional training.

 

In this way, the initiatives of University Social Responsibility (RSU), recognizes in the management of the management of the extension projects, the ethical character of the academic community, due to its incidence in the institutional daily life and the image that these houses of studies has in the conformation of the professional profile, beyond the development of the formal contents of experiences inside and outside the classroom from a social co-responsibility that must be projected to the desired future.

 

Forero and Perilla (2004, p.14): explain that a prospective vision of the managerial environment represents the ability to manage the information of the environment in favor of their profession, the organizations for which they work and individuals in general; Therefore, it is essential to see the possibility of putting together the university organizational puzzle, from a new perspective that allows visualizing the present reality with a projection of the future, seen as a whole.

 

Hence, Senge (2005b): argues that "systemic thinking is a discipline to see modalities" (p.91). Therefore, it serves as a frame of reference to see internal and external interrelations, instead of simplifying the dynamics of university leadership, awakening the capacity of the managers of these institutions to assume a social responsibility.

 

Therefore, social responsibility in the management of university management, must use the specific tools and techniques to bring about a change in organizational actions, as well as those involving the academic task in the training of future professionals, which translates into the decoding of possible patterns of change in ethical behavior co-responsible in the organization.

 

From a perspective of university social responsibility, it must be destined to unfold an academic management directed to reach the aims of the management of the superior education to respond to the demands of the society a vision of future coherent with the planetary coexistence of the citizens.

 

3.  Findings of the Theoretical Review

             The analysis of the theoretical constructs, represents the base of the results in this essay from a synthesis of the most significant elements that contribute to a relational scheme of the prospective management of the University Social Responsibility (RSU), as shown in the figure 1.

 

Figure 1. Relational scheme of the prospective management of the RSU.

SEE IN THE ORIGINAL VERSION

Source: The Author (2017).

 

Figure 1, shows the whole relational scheme of prospective management in the management of University Social Responsibility (RSU), as far as teaching is concerned, emphasis should be placed on the training of teachers in the approach of the RSU, to promote the specialties project-based learning with an openness to the social community as a source of meaningful teaching and practice applied to the solution of real problems. Likewise, the research must promote interdisciplinary agreements from their respective specialties; and the extension would be consubstantiated a synergy of knowledge articulated with socio-educational interactions.

 

In this synergistic connotation, the university socially assumes the responsibility of promoting educational values ​​with an ethical organizational academic vision, from which the management of its teaching, research and extension functions is impregnated, in accordance with the university management policies, the initiatives of RSU respond axiologically to the ethical model that is part of the professional curriculum, which is characterized by the academic action co-responsible, beyond the programmatic contents, without forgetting the importance of projecting them to the desired future, in terms of responding to the demands of the globalized society.

 

In correspondence with the previous approaches, the pedagogical vision of the RSU, should be directed to promote ethical practices from a prospective management, should raise the functions of (a) teaching, from an integral formation and of quality; (b) the investigation, with a pertinent approach to the demands of society; and (c) an extension, linked to social, environmental and planetary environments. In short, it is about integrating the academic work aimed at graduating professionals with relevant knowledge to the demands of contemporary society through strategic management capable of assuming shared responsibility.

 

4.  Conclusions

Once the exploration of the theoretical constructs was completed, the following conclusions were reached: First, the technological competences of the teacher for the innovation of educational praxis, requires besides the vocation of service, to study the new didactic paradigms to display their reflective capacity and assume the commitment to acquire the technological skills to assume the requirements of a global society.

 

Second, social responsibility represents a state of consciousness, which can occur individually, assumed by each of the elements that make up society. From this perspective, ethics does not appear as a brake on the interest of the organization but on the contrary, as a push for its advantage and operating modality of a greater articulation between the functions of teaching, research and extension.

 

Third, one of the challenges faced by the managers of business organizations is precisely to assume a prospective strategic management that orients their efforts with the incorporation of other alternatives that require changing roles for what is required to raise the levels of organizational maturity.

 

Finally, the university social responsibility must promote a reflective perspective of the academic managers to transcend the formative work, from a strategic prospective perspective in a systemic thought, without disciplinary barriers that assumes an unstructured attitude of the complexity, creating new spaces of present management and future of the academic organization oriented to graduate professionals with relevant knowledge to the demands of contemporary society, people committed to improving the quality of collective life from a planetary vision.

 

5.  References

Barroso, M. (2000). Meditaciones Gerenciales. Venezuela: Galoe.

 

Benavides J., Alameda D., & Villagra N. (2002). La Comunicación y la Cultura en la Sociedad del Conocimiento. Madrid: UCM.

 

De Fátima M., Baptista, M., & Contreras, H. (2012). La Innovación Social en el Contexto de la Responsabilidad Social Empresarial. Forum Empresarial, 17(1), 31-63. Recuperado de: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=63124039002

 

Díaz, E. (2009). Necesidad de un Modelo de Desarrollo Económico Sustentable. Revista Forestal Latinoamericana, Vol. 019 (1), N° 35. Mérida, Venezuela: SABER-ULA, Universidad de los Andes, págs. 65-78. Recuperado de: http://www.saber.ula.ve/handle/123456789/24116

 

Didriksson, A. (2016a,b). La Universidad desde su Futuro. Brasil: Pro-posições.

 

Drucker, P. (2012). Principios de la Organización Administrativa. México: Prentice Hall.

 

Forero E., & Perilla L. (2004). Visión Retrospectiva, Actual y Prospectiva de la Psicología Organizacional. Colombia: Universidad Católica De Colombia.

 

Godet, M. (2007). Prospectiva Estratégica: problemas y métodos. Por Michael Godet en colaboración con Philippe Durance y la participación de Prospektiker. Cuaderno nº 20. Segunda edición. Cuadernos de LIPSOR. Instituto Europeo de Prospectiva y Estrategia. París: PROSPEKTIKER. Recuperado de: http://www.laprospective.fr/dyn/francais/memoire/Cajadeherramientas2007.pdf

 

González, K., & López, J. (2014). Responsabilidad Social Universitaria. Apuntes para un Modelo de RSU.  Revista de Comunicación Centro Gumilla. Revista de Comunicación 13, págs. 84-117. Recuperado de: https://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/4875638.pdf

 

Izarra, D. (2016). Experiencias y Perspectivas en Ética Profesional y Responsabilidad Social Universitaria en Iberoamérica. Caracas: Universidad Pedagógica Experimental Libertador Centro de Investigación Educativa Georgina Calderón.

 

López, R., & Puevo, M. (2016). La Universidad y las Profesiones. Murcia, España: Educatio Siglo XXI.

 

Romero, C. (2008). Sobre la Responsabilidad Social en la PUCP. Lima, Perú: Editorial Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.

 

Sánchez, C. (2007). La Responsabilidad Social Universitaria (RSU) en el Contexto del Cambio de la Educación Superior. Brasil: Virtual Educa.

 

Senge, P. (2005a,b). La Quinta Disciplina. El Arte y la Práctica de la Organización Abierta al Aprendizaje. Buenos Aires: Granica.

 

Vallaeys, F. (2014a,b). La Responsabilidad Social Universitaria: Un Nuevo Modelo Universitario contra la Mercantilización. México: McGraw-Hill.

 

Vega, J. (2009). La Responsabilidad Social y los Principios del Desarrollo Sostenible como Fundamentos Teóricos de la Información Social de la Empresa. Madrid: ESIC Editorial

 

Villegas, Y. (2017). Responsabilidad Social Empresarial en el Contexto de las Relaciones Laborales en las PYMES. Revista Scientific2(6), 286-302. Recuperado de:

          https://doi.org/10.29394/scientific.issn.2542-2987.2017.2.6.15.286-302

 

 

Juan Carlos Pernía

e-mail: jpernia@ucla.edu.ve

 

Born in San Cristóbal, Táchira state, Venezuela. Lawyer Universidad Católica del Táchira, Magister Scientiarum Accountant Mention Audit at the Universidad Centroccidental “Lisandro Alvarado” (UCLA). University Professor by Opposition Contest Category Associate Professor. Certified speaker Universidad Central de Venezuela. Doctorate in Advanced Management from Fermín Toro University (UFT). Investigator.

 

The content of this manuscript is disseminated under a Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

 

- Original Version in Spanish -

DOI: https://doi.org/10.29394/Scientific.issn.2542-2987.2018.3.8.17.319-333